Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes has revealed that he will be without three key players including former Hibs’ midfielder Dylan McGeouch for the visit of Jack Ross’s men tonight.
Both sides go into the game on the back of semi-final defeats but have made positive starts to their league campaigns and sit in third and fourth place.
Speaking yesterday at the pre-match press conference McInnes said: “If we win tomorrow, I think it will be our second strongest start in the league in 20 years. We feel that there has been a positive start, but winning tomorrow night will just reinforce that.
“I must get asked about laying down markers every other week and I have never bought that. We just want to try and win a game of football.
“Hibs have put together a good squad this season and I think they have high expectations from their own side of it. From our side of it we recognise a good team, it was a good result against them back in August.
“We had to do so much right to overcome them. It was still a tight game and that reinforces the message to me and my players that we need something similar again to give us a chance of winning.
“They have got obvious goal threats; they have got good players and they have a good squad. It is far too early to be saying anything other than let’s go and get three points against a good team.
“We have had a lot of challenges and injuries but it is nowhere near as bad as it was last season where we seemed to get three or four in the same area of the team and it was really having an impact on us.
“We have been picking up injuries this season and a lot of them have been to key players. We even lost Scott McKenna for a club record transfer fee and we have still shown a resilience about us to carry on through.
“ You can see the benefit of the squad that we have been able to keep on picking up positive results. Losing key players is always a blow at any time of the season. We are now without a few key players, in Marley, (Watkins) Dylan (McGeouch) and Jonny (Hayes) for the next period.
“We take comfort from the fact that we have good players waiting to come in. We have had Greg Leigh, Matty Kennedy and Curtis Main coming back into the fray of late. We have young Dean Campbell who should be available again after this international break. It is not all bad and it is test.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
